Dell’s CFO built a 27-year career without leaving the company. Here’s how he kept moving up

Good morning. David Kennedy has spent more than 27 years at Dell Technologies—an almost unimaginable tenure in an era when many Gen Z workers see changing companies as the surest path to advancement.  

Kennedy took a different path. He built his career by continuously changing roles within one company. In November 2025, that path culminated in his appointment as CFO. His path wasn’t linear, but it was deliberate, Kennedy said. He joined Dell as an intern in Limerick, Ireland, after graduating from the University of Limerick. Early on, Kennedy set a goal to rotate through different finance functions every 18 to 21 months. “I’ve done a tour of duty in every finance function you can think of,” he told me.

He also pushed beyond finance, taking assignments in sales, business unit leadership, and international postings in India, and, now, the U.S.

At a time when younger workers often feel pressure to switch employers in order to gain diverse experience and move up, Kennedy’s career offers a counterpoint: breadth, reinvention, and advancement can also come from moving intentionally within one company.

According to Deloitte’s 2025 Gen Z and Millennial Survey, younger workers are highly focused on advancement but less drawn to traditional leadership tracks. Yet Kennedy’s trajectory suggests that even in a corporate landscape defined by job-hopping, the conventional route of building range and credibility at a single employer remains a viable one for younger workers.

Kennedy made his ambitions known and pursued opportunities as they arose, even when they were not obvious fits. Those experiences stretched him. “I said, ‘I’m looking to learn new things,’” Kennedy explained. “And then you lean on the mentors you have, and then they say, ‘Okay, go over here and do this job.’”

That openness to experimentation also changed how he viewed his career. Kennedy always knew he wanted to be an accountant. “But I started to get the bug for the story within the numbers,” he........

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